About the Shrine and the Frog Demon, make sure to craft the whip, it's insane. It's a poisoned weapon that you can infuse with poison.
You can also burn a Bonfire Ascetic, get the soul again, and then dual-wield the things.
I tended to find poison more trouble than it was worth, though. Probably good against other players, but you're usually better off just killing most other enemies instead of getting them poisoned.
Brume Tower can indeed be brutal in some spots, but I reckon it's my fave of the Crown expansions.
Now, favorite area in the main game? GO!
I'd have to go with Tseldora, with Huntsmans Copse coming in at a close 2nd.
That's a hard one. Torn somewhat between frozen Eleum Loyce, Brume Tower and Undead Purgatory.
I found poison working for me only with the bow and arrows. When you meet Gavlan twice (in Wharf and then in Harvest Valley), he goes to the Gyrm respite, and then sells unlimited amount of those for 60 souls a piece. With my stats I need to hit the enemy 5 five times before the poison buildup does the rest, but it's worth it, at times.
Only Undead Purgatory is from the main game?Originally Posted by twisty
My favorite DLC area is definitely Eleum Loyce, though I am partial to snowy areas. All DLC locations were pretty cool though. From the main game, my favorite is Lost Bastille. I just found that decrepit moonlit fort in the middle of sea quite atmospheric. It also had more elaborate layout than most other areas.
True dat, amped it up with all the dragon bones I had, and it's awesome. Great for both crowd control, and single opponents. Goes through armor, works on wall ghosts, phantoms, and has a good range. 3 hits and the health is going down like crazy.
Ok, so I can't read. And I actually meant to say Huntsman Copse. As far as the main game is concerned, it's a difficult one for me to pick really as there were many areas that I preferred in some ways (i.e the novelty of No-Man's Wharf, the look and feel of the Shrine Of Amana, the architecture of Doors of Pharros), but I loved the variety of Huntsman Copse and the variety of enemies.
Last edited by twisty; 18th Mar 2016 at 01:07.
Ah, the Doors of Pharros. It looks so incredible, so loaded with the potential for adventure, that I couldn't help but end up being so disappointed when I found it was nothing more than two large, open rooms.
Fortunately, Shulva ended up scratching the "grand exploration of overly complicated architecture" itch Pharros left me with.
I didn't like the beard that you get with the mustache so I picked the full beard instead, which isn't really all that full TBH. Hopefully they have better beards in DS3.
Bosses I've beaten since last time are Scorpioness Najka, Congregation, Skeleton Lords, Covetous Demon, Baneful Queen, Smelter Demon and Old Iron King.
The bosses with multiple enemies like Congregation and Skeleton Lords I find are really annoying with fist weapons only mainly because of the minimal range and I had to use up a lot of my life gems on them. Also I was doing pretty lousy damage on the priests for some reason even with backstabs so I wonder if they have some kind of defense buff going on that I haven't noticed while fighting them before.
On my first (failed) attempt against Smelter Demon he managed to get me pinned against a wall for about half a minute during which I could only roll in place with his torso filling my entire screen. I actually survived it without losing much health due to invulnerability frames from rolling (the only damage I took was from proximity). I defeated him on my second attempt.
Old Iron King wouldn't have been much trouble if he hadn't kept spamming his fire breath attack. On my first attempt he managed to just barely nudge me into the lava with his head at the end of one of these. The second time I punched his arm until he was dead.
I was going to try fighting the Ruin Sentinels at one point but I didn't remember that you need a branch of yore to this in SOTFS and I'd used up my only one so far on Rosabeth.
I collected a bunch of screenshots I made in Scholar since it's release (HUD-less, sort of "photos"), figured I'd share them: http://imgur.com/a/COiOE
Dammit, with SOTFS you have to fight the throne guys, Nashandra, and Aldia, all in one go. I used up all my human effigies to have phantoms with me, because I didn't want to loose those 180k souls. But then I discovered you can actually use the feather during the fight, so I got the souls and went back to Majula to level up. With only one boss to defeat in the main game, I might try the DLCs first.
Last edited by Judith; 3rd Apr 2016 at 12:33.
The game doesn't force you into NG+ after finishing the last boss, so you can check out the DLCs even after the ending. You absolutely should play the DLCs though in any case, since those are the best parts of the game.
Thanks for the heads up, Malleus
Please share your experience with each expansion! :3
Are those screenshots taken in the basic game ? Or did you replace textures ? Did you use any graphical mods, like SweetFX/ReShade/ENBSeries, set different AA in your gfx-card control panel, etc ? I believe the "dsfix" for DS2 is called GeDoSaTo. Did you use that ? TIA.
No graphical or any mods whatsoever.
In the sunken king DLC, and omg f*** these bosses. It's so obvious the DLC is multiplayer focused, which is a shame because the server population is pretty scant these days. The havel's ganksquad was bad enough to solo, but Elana summoning a past boss (Vestaldt) then nuking you from afar while you deal with him?
I don't understand the praise the DLCs receive. These are the worst boss fights in the game so far.
What soul level are you currently at? I'd be happy to lend a hand but we might struggle timezone wise.
FWIW apart from my first time playing through the sunken king DLC (champions' covenant) I've never had too much trouble soloing Elana or any of the other bosses in this DLC.
As the summoned Velstadt is somewhat of a damage sponge I would recommend ignoring him and going directly for Elana instead. I also wouldn't recommend trying the tactic of leading Velstadt to another corner of the room before going for her, which I remember reading somewhere, as this never worked for me because she would just teleport directly to where I was as soon as I'd achieved the first part of this plan.
The "gank squad" is easy enough to take care of by simply making a little strategic use of the environment as you've probably already found out.
Thanks Twisty - I'm on PS3 EST. Don't you need my soul memory?
Thanks for the advice. I'll try this tactic and watch some YouTube vids of the fight.
The only thing I dislike about Elana is that the fight is very dependent on RNG. Get Velstadt? Hard Mode. Get skellies? Normal Mode. Get piggies? Hahaha what the fuck Mode. When I soloed her, she only summoned skeletons, never won with the big V in the arena.
Btw, apart from the rest of the challenge bosses (one per DLC), the rest is fine solo. Elana is the only non-challenge boss that has mob support.
Gave this another chance and now that I'm a decent way into it I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. I'm at earthen peak at the moment.
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